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Tuesday, 29 November 2011

Catching up (just a little...)

As with most (and quite possibly probably all) of you, this time of year just gets busier than ever. I'm fed up of hearing myself apologise for falling behind with my blog visits, so please just take it as read. I will do my best to get round to see you all and comment when I can, but I can't promise when that will be! It may be that for a while I'll need to scale down my commenting in order to fit in more reading, but I will try to check in with you often enough that you know I am still reading :)

Meanwhile, apart from my Project 365 posts, I shall also be scaling down my own blog posting for a the next few weeks. I have plenty to share about the fabby weekend away, and I shall be working on my Journal Your Christmas as well as some sort of December Daily, but I shall probably aim to do less frequent 'round up' posts with a few days at a time rather than daily individual posts. I'm hoping that will save some time for both me and you! (And I think you deserve a rest after my mammoth posting frenzy with all my Pretty Paper Party layouts!)

People who've signed up for the second phase of the Facebook Project, I'll be in touch with you very soon. All your faces are stamped and ready, but I was planning to go to the Post Office on Wednesday; however, both The Children's schools will be closed due to the strike action and I've also offered to look after my friend's two kids for some of the day so it looks like that one window of opportunity will be closed and I might have to wait till next week :( I'll send an email round letting you know where I'm up to with that.

I did want to share with you some particular photos as soon as possible, though :) One of the (many) highlights of the weekend away was receiving a very special gift from the lovely and very talented K as part of a Pay It Forward. I had no idea what she might make for me but having seen some of her previous projects on her blog I knew I was in for a treat! Do you want to see what I got? :)

Isn't it amazing? A specially altered dictionary, custom-made for me!

I love the finish on it - the texture, the glaze, the patina of age, the little details...

But you know, it's even more special than might appear at first. You see, when you open it up and turn the first few pages, nestling inside in a little secret cubby hole is:

(Footnote: I tweeted pics of this last night, and Green & Black's spotted my tweets and retweeted the photo above! So thrilled that K's creation gets the recognition it deserves!)

Right, my friends. Time for me to have an early lunch before heading off to teach my papercrafts class then collecting The Children from school and dropping them off home then going to a (long) school governor meeting before fetching The Tomboy from Brownies then dashing home for a late dinner before heading out again to collect The Boy from Kids' Club and then trying to dash off a few more Santa letters because some came in late on Friday so I couldn't do them over the weekend and then having a much-looked-forward-to Skype with my dear friend Amy... Yes, it's a quiet day today! ;) Speak soon xx

It is definitely busy here, too. I have a few "slow" days this week, then it kicks off again in full gear until after New Year's. It's all fun stuff, and I'll be taking lots of photos along the way to scrap next year.

I'm going to own up to the fact that I loathe going to our Post Office. It's across lanes of traffic and the parking is horrible. So I do try to save things until the weekend because TA doesn't mind going!

I'm glad that you are going to stop berating yourself for not commenting on everyone's blogs! I've learned long ago that there really are not enough hours in the day for us to do it ALL and I've also learned that I can not comment on each and every blog on my list, as much as I'd like to =-\

I do hope you will use some of the time you'd use commenting and use it savoring that tasty chocolate gift you received! ;) You deserve a break!!

Hi Mel...commenting from sunny Barcelona-the Birthday Girl is still asleep, so have grabbed a few mins on her laptop! Looking forward to reading reports of the weekend away and love your pressie. I reckon we'll all be slowing down on the comments over the next month or soAlison xx

I dunno, you seemed pretty cool, calm and collected by the time I was chatting with you!TFYO wanted to skype with you again tonight our time so she could say good morning and tell you it was dark here now ... she's obviously a shy child! ;-)

As I read this, I am doing blog catch up and am thinking I need to just call a blog amnesty and read current postings. Funny, I have been off track and am thinking with December I may just get back into a blogging routine..silly me lol. The PIF gift is amazing, how very, very special! Tooc ool that they picked up on your tweet :)

...is what I speak. It describes what I actually say (nonsense, mostly) and how I say it (ie my accent, which is a mixture of all sorts - a bit of North of England, a bit of Irish, a bit of South West England, a lot of just me!) The word comes from my name, Mel, and the fact that I'm one-quarter Welsh. But there's not actually any Welsh in my accent. Go figure...